Turning a Brand into A Lovemark
December 6, 2006 by
Adam
Filed under
Entrepreneurship
You see them everyday - Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Lambourghinis and Rolexes. But these different products and brands no doubt invoke a different emotion than the “I want it” syndrome. For me they bring about a feeling of love, of warmth and of affection. These lovemarks are a company’s dream and most spend millions of dollars advertising to bring about similar emotions in our everyday lives.
Seth Godin (a fellow blogger) writes in his book Purple Cow: Transform by being Remarkable (aff.) that two factors lie behind this play on emotions. Firstly, innovation is of the utmost importance. Anyone can advance on a certain idea and try to add a few more features or try to make it a bit better. Successful lovemarks can only be achieved with a successful and new product - attracting the attention of new shoppers and customers (think how Alex Tew did this with MDHP and now Pixelotto).
Secondly, to develop a lovemark one must have a band of loyal followers. If it weren’t for the minted rappers, those “cool” people who drive upto the clubs in their Lambourghinis do you really think you’d be wanting one? Of course, these people boost brand recognition - and most of the time are paid to do so. Krispy Kreme does this very effectively by giving out free dougnnuts as they roll off the production line.
But this still is not the be all and end all of creating a world-changing item. If the consumer doesn’t like it then it’s you that has to change. Love implies commitment, and if you’re not committed to revolutionizing your niche then your band of zealots simply won’t look up to you with adoration as they did before. BMW’s newly designed 5 and 7 series has amounted a fair share of criticism from its loyal car buyers, so meeting the needs of your consumers is number 1 priority.
Managing to turn a brand into a Lovemark may not be as easy as ABC, but if you master it, it can change your business. Put yourself in their shoes and play on emotions. Building bonds and relationships with your purchasers will tie them in and sometimes it’s worth paying for the attachment
hey adnan,
you may also already know that seth godin is the brains behind squidoo.
useful for traffic generation, a little monetization and raising money for charity. phew! talk about killing 3 birds with one stone!
check out my recent blog post for more info:
http://ping.sg/read/Do_You_Squidoo_Get_Traffic_and_Revenue_and_Do_Social_Good_too_
leave a comment too!
Adnan,
I’m sure you have noticed that the brands we love all have these things in common:
- A compelling product, service or experience
- They only make promises they can keep and always keep them
- They understand their customers and align their offerings with their needs and desires
- They posses admirable human qualities
Derrick
Thanks for dropping by guys.
Andrew - yep I knew about Squidoo - its a really great service a bit like a MySpace. Thanks for linking to your post, I’ll take a look at it.
Derrick - I think its safe to say that these brands are honest and its this honesty which drives us to like them more and more. You’re completely right - they always have kick-ass products and most of the time are innovative.
Customer service is so important these days with the amount of new e-commerce and business sites springing up all over the place. I like to think that by me responding to comments Im giving a high level of customer service too!
Great stuff and nice blogs you’ve got there Andrew and Derrick.
I recently wrote a thesis on consumers perceptions of relationship marketing and found that building a relationship with your customers is so important these days.People want to feel that they trust you. The whole premise of relationship marketing is that it is much more cost effective for companies to retain than to recruit.
Companies must offer something that consumers want and communicate with them on their level.
Hey!
Was just browsing through your site and saw this old(er) article. I’m actually quite interessted in all the Lovemark stuff as well,and I found a cool Article this morning which goes a bit against the concept iteself. Thought you might be interested to read about that as well… http://www.lobalized.com/2009/03/the-not-so-cool-things-about-lovemarks-why-its-sometimes-better-to-not-go-for-loyalty/
They have a cool video as well!;-) here it is: http://www.lobalized.com/2009/02/ukranian-army-ad/
Enjoy and keep up the great work, love the site!
Thanks,
Daniel